RAM - Can you expain

zervi2003

Another computer question relating to laptops, is 2 GB RAM good? i.e good enough to run multiple applications?

hottstuff

On XP, yes, on Vista it may be borderline depending on the software being used.
Sorry i don't use Vista.

pwd

My old laptop has a 1.7ghz dual core processor, 2gb ram and is running vista. Runs multiple applications fine.

Fysh

The amount of RAM you need depends on what applications you're going to use, what operating system you're running and what hardware you've got. So with Windows XP and an intel integrated graphics card 2GB is fine, you'll be able to run the likes of Photoshop pretty easily and so on, although maybe not several memory-hungry apps all at once. The same hardware with Vista will stutter along more slowly, and give you worse performance.

That said, if you just want to have, say, a couple of Word docs, a PDF and a web browser open at the same time, 2GB should be loads. Even under Vista it'll be ok if you turn off Aero and use the Windows Classic appearance.

pwd

yeah I have aero turned off on the laptop described above.
You also would benefit from turning off lots of the unused servives that run in vista by default. I even do this on my higher spec laptop when I want to play games.

J_Dublin15

Christ, Vista is not that resource heavy, all I can say if you believe Vista needs that much ram you must be using some VERY poor systems to run it on with very cheap components. 2GB is plenty on Vista. More than enough for anything.

My Desktop has 2GB ram and it kills XP for Performance maybe thats because it was built with decent components, same with my Laptop. No need to use Windows Classic or turn off Aero unless you bought a cheap machine with cheap components or one of the budget end Dells.

zervi2003

Thanks for the replies.
This is the spec I think I am going to buy (€889):
What ye think?

General
System Type Notebook
Width 35.7 cm
Height 4 cm
Weight 3.1 kg
Processor
Processor AMD Turion 64 X2 mobile technology ZM-80 / 2.1 GHz
Multi-Core Technology Dual-Core
64-bit Computing Yes
Cache Memory
Installed Size 2 MB
RAM
Installed Size 2 GB
Technology DDR2 SDRAM
Storage controller
Type Serial ATA
Storage
Hard Drive 250 GB
Optical Storage
Type DVD±RW (±R DL) / DVD-RAM
Display
Display Type 12.1 in TFT active matrix
Max Resolution 1280 x 800
Widescreen Display Yes
Audio
Audio Output Sound card
Audio Input Microphone
Notebook Camera
Camera Type Integrated
Input Device(s)
Type Keyboard
Telecom
Modem Fax / modem
Max Transfer Rate 56 Kbps
Networking
Networking Network adapter
Wireless LAN Supported Yes
Data Link Protocol Ethernet, Fast Ethernet, IEEE 802.11b, IEEE 802.11g
Battery
Technology Lithium Ion
Operating System / Software
OS Provided Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium SP1
Manufacturer Warranty
Service & Support 1 year warranty
Video
Video Output / Graphics Processor / Vendor ATI Radeon HD 3200

Fysh

J_Dublin15 wrote: »

Christ, Vista is not that resource heavy, all I can say if you believe Vista needs that much ram you must be using some VERY poor systems to run it on with very cheap components. 2GB is plenty on Vista. More than enough for anything.

Given that a Vista install is described by Microsoft as taking up 9-15GB of hard drive space, compared to ~2.5GB of space for Windows XP, there's a hell of a lot under the hood for it not to be resource heavy. And frankly, my experience of it both at home and at work has been that unless you're running it on a high-end machine bought after about June '07, default Vista runs like crap and compares very poorly to the same hardware on XP. It's all very well saying "spend some money on higher-end kit", but that only applies if you need Vista. I don't, and let's be honest, a lot of people don't.

Alanstrainor

zervi2003 wrote: »

Thanks for the replies.
This is the spec I think I am going to buy (€889):
What ye think?

General
System Type Notebook
Width 35.7 cm
Height 4 cm
Weight 3.1 kg
Processor
Processor AMD Turion 64 X2 mobile technology ZM-80 / 2.1 GHz
Multi-Core Technology Dual-Core
64-bit Computing Yes
Cache Memory
Installed Size 2 MB
RAM
Installed Size 2 GB
Technology DDR2 SDRAM
Storage controller
Type Serial ATA
Storage
Hard Drive 250 GB
Optical Storage
Type DVD±RW (±R DL) / DVD-RAM
Display
Display Type 12.1 in TFT active matrix
Max Resolution 1280 x 800
Widescreen Display Yes
Audio
Audio Output Sound card
Audio Input Microphone
Notebook Camera
Camera Type Integrated
Input Device(s)
Type Keyboard
Telecom
Modem Fax / modem
Max Transfer Rate 56 Kbps
Networking
Networking Network adapter
Wireless LAN Supported Yes
Data Link Protocol Ethernet, Fast Ethernet, IEEE 802.11b, IEEE 802.11g
Battery
Technology Lithium Ion
Operating System / Software
OS Provided Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium SP1
Manufacturer Warranty
Service & Support 1 year warranty
Video
Video Output / Graphics Processor / Vendor ATI Radeon HD 3200

What make/model is that? and where are you buying?

zervi2003

Its a HP Pavillion - was looking to buy a new laptop - read about them here on another post and looked them up - its a Hewlett Packard Pavilion tx2530ea

J_Dublin15

Thats a Tablet one right? I've not used the TX series pavilions but I have a DV6899ea and a friend has a DV2104eu and they're both very very solid laptops, stylish too. I'd prefer Intel though rather than AMD